Yep. She’s a Teenager.

The most insulting thing that I can say to my daughter is that she’s acting like a teenager. Jay prides herself in being a mature and atypical teenage girl and, to her credit (and my great fortune) she is—in many respects. She never rolls her eyes at me (maybe because she knows I would roll them right out of her head if she ever tried), she’s not boy crazy (interested yes, crazy no), and she doesn’t care what her hair looks like. (Maybe that’s not true: she does seem to me to spend a lot of time trying to make her hair look like she hasn’t fussed with it.)

BUT, Jay does fall victim to a handful of traits that are typical of teens. . . .

1. If Jay had it her way, she’d sleep until at least noon. This irritates me, so I burst into the room around 8:00am and say something like, “Get up! Feed your dog!”

2. Jay’s room is a pig sty. I have to shout “Feed your dog!” from the doorway because making my way to her bed is like navigating an obstacle course. Shoes, jeans, shirts, underwear, socks, school papers, her guitar, even her cell phone sometimes. There’s just $#*^ everywhere.

3. She keeps her cell phone with her at all times but somehow it’s impossible to get in touch with the child. It’s a mystery, particularly because when she’s at home, she’s perpetually texting. I hear that thing vibrating in my sleep.

4. If she’s not sleeping, doing homework, eating or picking off Nazi zombies on a video game, she’s on Facebook. Her recent post was a video she took of her and C&T trying to get the mostly-dead centipede out of her room.

5. She is annoyed by her siblings—particularly during periods of irritability. The tension she exudes during these weeks is so extreme that being in a car, room or even house with Jay and C&T is an endurance test. In my desperate attempts to minimize the tension, I beg C&T to not sing, laugh, play, or even talk around her. In fact, I tell them, just don’t breathe. It’s only a 20-minute drive.

6. She pushes the boundaries of fashion. The challenge is keeping my mouth shut as long as what she’s wearing isn’t inappropriate. (Luckily, Jay doesn’t dress like a prostitot, which is borderline atypical based on the OMG-short skirts and skanky shirts I’ve seen around her school.) Jay’s weakness is patterns: when she walks out the door in a black and neon green T-shirt with a red-and-black plaid vest atop ethnic-patterned rust-and-black 90s pants and multi-colored shoes with glittery-eyed skeletons all over them—wow. I really struggle to shut up and say, “Okay, bye honey! Have a great day!” instead of something like, “WTH?! Are you serious?!”

Despite this handful of irritating traits, I love my sometimes-stegosaurus-haired teen! She’s a keeper.